


it's been a long, long time

by sicsempertyrannis



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, One True Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicsempertyrannis/pseuds/sicsempertyrannis
Summary: Kiss me once, then kiss me twiceThen kiss me once againIt’s been a long, long timea one true ending fic of BJ finding Hawkeye in Maine. otherwise titled the house as a metaphor for the body
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce & Daniel Pierce
Comments: 19
Kudos: 90





	it's been a long, long time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gayfranzkafka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfranzkafka/gifts).



> this just hit me and i couldn't not write it. inspired by gay emotions, gayfranzkafka, hot mash summer, and the song it's been a long long time. i'm only halfway through season four, but i believe in the one true ending (OTE) of BJ finding Hawkeye in Maine. also i've followed hot mash summer since it started so i have a pretty good idea of the show/their vibes

Carefully, Hawkeye lifted the needle off the record, doing his best to not to get his prints all over it. He reached out blindly to his right to grab the record sleeve, slipping it on to the copy of whatever Ella Fitzgerald album he had grabbed. He hadn’t actually looked at the title, the albums he played when he first entered the attic barely registered in his mind; they were all build-up.

It was not so much the music that mattered, but the act of caring for something. The routine of dusting the sleeves, the almost surgical precision it took to remove the record without truly touching it. To touch was to damage.

When Hawkeye had first arrived back in Crabapple Cove, he tried picking up a shift at his dad’s workplace. He had walked in, ready to be somewhere truly clean for the first time in years, and promptly walked out to be sick in the bushes. He hadn’t tried that again in the year since he’d been home.

That was a lie. It hadn’t quite been a year since Korea. Nine months. There were weeks when he cycled between counting each day and trying to jump forward. For now, he was settled on calling it a year; no reason to stick to the calendar when time had never been consistent in Hawkeye’s life.

Having placed the Ella Fitzgerald back on the record stack, he walked to the other side of the attic, avoiding the loose floorboard he used to trip on as a kid. With reverence, he picked up the record sitting alone on the creaky wooden stool. The morning sunlight slanting through the window gave him just enough light to read the name of the record, but pretending he needed the light to identify it was only a role he played.

Returning to the record player, Hawkeye reprised his daily routine of the past year. If Father Mulcahy could see the way he handled this record, he’d say he would have been an excellent priest. The inky disc started to spin, and Hawkeye eyed it for a moment before placing the needle down.

Jazz started playing, emerging as if from a dream. Hawkeye closed his eyes, feeling it roll over him soft as velvet. He remembered when this song first came out, playing on the radio nearly every time he turned it on.

The minute mark hit, and Kitty Kallen’s voice crooned from the record player.

_Kiss me once, then kiss me twice_

_Then kiss me once again_

_It’s been a long, long time_

The day the Korean war ended was supposed to be the best day of his life, when he left that hell and got to return to his dad and hometown. Instead, it had left him with an itch in his skin. He always knew when that feeling would start, an ache in his inner elbows sliding down to his hands, leaving him stretching at the edges of himself.

Hawkeye knew exactly what it would take to solve his problems, the phone staring at him every time he passed by. Playground rules never let him dial the number. BJ, the man who won with his suburban wife and kid combo, was the one who was supposed to call first. Sharing when your cup runneth over and all that. At least, that’s how he thought it went. BJ would know.

Mornings were when he was soft, still vulnerable to the gentle hands that touched him in his dreams. The angle of the early light always hit just right, turning his scars to shining silver. Hawkeye lowered himself to his knees, head bowing right in front of the record player. This was his indulgence of the day, when he allowed himself to fantasize about what could have been.

The trumpets faded out, and Hawkeye removed the record before the next song could start. With shaking hands, he slipped it into its sleeve. He almost missed the footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Are you playing that song again?” his dad asked.

“No, I just got really good at singing during the war,” Hawkeye said, raising himself to his feet. He turned around to see his dad standing in the doorway.

“You never showed an interest in music like this before the war.”

“I also never flinched at loud noises before the war. Besides, they’re your records, and I want to take care of them.” Hawkeye crossed the attic floor once more, placing “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” on the stool by itself.

“You could at least take the record player down, listen to it in the kitchen instead of in a dusty attic,” his dad said, leaning against the mantle.

“I like it up here, dad.”

Hawkeye walked to the door to leave, but his dad didn’t budge. They stared at each other for a moment in silence.

“You used to talk about him so much in your letters, but you’ve barely mentioned his name now. To think, I was excited to meet him.”

He didn’t have to clarify who he was talking about. Hawkeye closed his eyes for a moment, although he’d say he was just resting them if anyone asked, then looked at the ceiling.

“It’s hard,” was all he said.

“I know, son.”

They walked downstairs together, Hawkeye doing his best to leave memories of the 4077 in the attic.

|||

The _Cinderella_ soundtrack buried under records had been a surprise to find. He had seen the movie once, at a late showing so he didn’t look like a creep without a kid. His dad must have bought the record while he was in Korea, he would have remembered it otherwise.

Despite being marketed for children, Hawkeye had loved it. He mentally attributed it to his childlike demeanor, never quite able to take anything without a joke. It had hurt him once when BJ mentioned it. He couldn’t bear to explain that half the time it was all for him.

Of course, he had cracked jokes before BJ had come to the 4077—before he himself had come to the 4077—but they were part of a performance, trying to be exactly who the military didn’t want him to be. After that fateful day, when Trapper left and the jeep was stolen and Murphy’s law was in mass effect, Hawkeye would always catch himself looking to see whether BJ had laughed.

It had been strange how different BJ had looked when he had taken off his captain’s hat, more at ease in his skin. The first thing Hawkeye noticed about him was how he rolled with everything Hawkeye threw at him, smile as easy as California waves. Hawkeye had never liked the West Coast as much as he liked Maine, but he liked how BJ held it within him.

Back to the jokes. Whenever Klinger would come out in some new dress, or when Frank would go on his idiotic tirade of the day, he’d give his scripted quip and feel the soft rumble next to him. That set of eyes on him.

Hawkeye grew up used to being watched, known in Crabapple Cove for his antics, but how BJ looked at him was different. It cut through him, but the gaze was so sharp he couldn’t feel anything until he looked down at the gaping wound. When Hawkeye left the war, he left bleeding.

Out of the record player, Ilene Woods as Cinderella sang about dreams. Hawkeye would never tell anyone about the dreams he had. In them, BJ came to him in stages. Sick in the grass, fresh out of basic training, Hawkeye’s hand softly rubbing his back. It meant nothing to him at the time, a well-ingrained instinct to make sure someone’s okay. Afterwards, when the Swamp was as quiet as it could be, he caught himself staring at the hand that had touched BJ. He didn’t know what it meant at the time; he wished he didn’t now.

No, that was wrong. Hawkeye was glad to have the memories that he had, even if they never left his mind. BJ could visit him in his dreams every night for the rest of his life. In his dream last night, it had been the time BJ had stolen his socks. This time, Hawkeye accused him in private, some hidden area that only the two of them knew about. Hawkeye woke up with the sting of beard burn and the need to take a cold shower.

He was on the floor now, laying down with his head pressed against the record player’s stand. The wood under his back was unforgiving, but comforting after three years on a hard cot. “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” was in his hands, ready to replace _Cinderella_ when needed. His mind drifted to the movie, trying to match the music to the scene. BJ, Peg, and Erin could be listening to the same thing right now, a nightmare having shaken Erin out of sleep and the record put on to soothe her.

Hawkeye shot up, almost knocking the record player over. He needed to put that thought of his head before he spent the day brooding on it. Like a well oil-machined, he stopped the needle on “So This is Love” and put _Cinderella_ in its proper place. He started the song he’d been waiting for, resting his head back on the floor.

The song played out, all three minutes twenty-three seconds of it. For once, his mind was almost empty as it played. He removed the record with a _click_ , and placed the record in its sleeve, the sleeve back on its stool. Hawkeye left the attic immediately after, almost shutting the door completely before stopping, letting it stay open an inch.

|||

Hawkeye didn’t know why he was listening to Edith Piaf, he didn’t know a word of French. His attempts to learn Korean had been painful at best, but he couldn’t even imagine his attempt at French pronunciation. He tried to maintain some semblance of peace, to just listen and enjoy the song, but his thoughts ended up where they always did. 

Trapper hadn’t left a note. After racing through Korea and missing him by only ten minutes, their temporary goodbye before his R&R turned into a permanent one. He was so afraid that BJ in the end was going to be the exact same, leaving forever with nothing to show for it. Hawkeye’s time in Korea some hellish cycle doomed to repeat forever.

There were times when every conversation he had with BJ felt like a thousand different ones, each parallel universe version exchanging the same words with different meanings. There was so much he wanted to say but he was never able to say it.

The music was enough to take up space, and that was all that mattered to him. The ability to insert whatever words he needed had turned this record into a frequent player.

It was raining this morning, the water pounding down on the roof. Hawkeye remembered that it used to leak when he was a kid, and he used to stand under the falling water until his dad yelled for him to move before he got sick. At some point, someone had repaired the hole in the roof. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he could still feel the water. As if his clothes were wet but not truly wet; the ghost of a dampness that indicated that it was once submerged, but the source of the water was long gone.

The music halted, the record running out. Sighing, Hawkeye fulfilled his routine of putting on “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” as the last song of the morning. Saving the best for last let him carry it with him throughout the day, even as he left the record behind.

He didn’t know why his mind chose to associate this song with BJ. He knew it was a song about someone waiting for their spouse to return home from war, those parallels were obvious, but they returned home from war at the same time. There was no waiting for the other; their story was done. The first time he played it when he had returned home, he had spent the song fighting back tears. He knew smell was memory’s primary sensation, but this song brought him into a life he hadn’t lived.

In another world, Hawkeye and BJ met before the war. BJ’s car broke down in Crabapple Cove, and Hawkeye just happened to find him. The war would start and only one of them would get drafted—Hawkeye could never decide which—and the other would wait at home tearfully. When the big news came, that war was over, they’d never even think about what was left behind in Korea, they’d only think about what they had to return to.

Hawkeye didn’t entertain those fantasies often; instead, he’d prefer to go into his real memories and tweak the narrative. A kiss here, a night alone there. If they had ever gotten a real kiss, Hawkeye wondered what he would have tasted like to BJ. Would the salt have been that of his past or his future?

All alone, Hawkeye rose to his feet and began to hum along to the last notes of the song. He did a half waltz, spinning with his arms in the air. He could imagine the sight he must make, a graying man dancing all alone in his father’s house.

When the song ended, Hawkeye lifted the needle without interrupting his dance. He’d go downstairs in his own time.

|||

Hawkeye started _The Voice of Frank Sinatra_ before sitting on the ground, back against a stack of records.

This day had been strange. His dad had woken up before him for once, asking Hawkeye to pick up some groceries before he was able to do his morning routine. That alone had shaken him a bit, despite him immediately agreeing. He knew logically it’d do him good to not start his day cooped up alone in a dusty attic, but he’d never been one for logic.

Crabapple Cove’s grocery store could hardly be called a store—more a market than anything. His dad sent him to pick up eggs, milk, the suburban housewife essentials. He had wandered through the aisles in silence, nodding half-heartedly whenever he made eye contact. Business as usual. But it felt like he was being haunted, constantly turning around just as the ghost exited the aisle.

When he had finished paying for his goods and started to walk out, he felt the tingling feeling on his neck again. Eyes cutting through him. This time, Hawkeye didn’t turn around, but looked out of the corner of his eye. A hint of mustache left him reeling. He spun around so quickly he nearly cracked the eggs, the shape of BJ’s name in his mouth, but there was nothing there.

When he got back home it was time for lunch, his trip getting groceries taking much longer than he had intended. Hawkeye changed back into his morning clothes, not wanting to be dressed for anything on this day of relaxation. He and his father had sat at the table with egg sandwiches, both in their robes.

A combination of the record ending and the splinter digging into his hand brought Hawkeye back into the present. 20 minutes gone by, and nothing to show for it. “Someone to Watch Over Me” played in his mind as he rose to his feet and crossed over to the stool and back to the record player. Him and BJ had talked about Sinatra once, mostly because Frank couldn’t decide between being offended or proud of having the same name as him. Something about Frank being a strong name, not one for—

He tripped. Hawkeye had tripped over the loose floorboard when “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” was in his hands, and now it wasn’t in hands his at all. It was on the floor, and it was split in pieces. Hawkeye pushed himself off the ground, wood digging into his palms, and rested on his hands and knees, just staring at the record below him.

Before whatever in him that survived the war had the chance to snap, he heard a knock on the door downstairs. Three times, quick and hard. There was a joke there somewhere, but he couldn’t reach it. Faintly, he heard himself call down to his dad that’d he’d grab the door.

Hawkeye descended, away from the attic and the pieces on the floor. The person at the door knocked again, and Hawkeye was reminded of this story he had been told long ago. A man lost what he loved most in a desperate bid for what he thought he wanted, and so he wished for the love back. It did return, but it returned twisted and mutilated, and indicated its presence with a heavy knock on the door. Hawkeye tried to banish that thought. It wasn't his story.

A third set of knocks began just as Hawkeye opened the door, greeting him with a hand in the face. He knocked the hand out of his face, retort dying on his tongue when his vision was clear

BJ stood on the front porch in the ugliest Hawaiian shirt known to man, one hand holding a rock, and the other one still poised in the air, inches from Hawkeye’s face. He smelled of East Coast salt.

“Cat got your tongue?” BJ asked, smile gracing his lips.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

BJ laughed, loud and clear. “That was weak, even for you.”

Hawkeye found himself, puffing out his chest as proudly as he could in his robe and pajamas. “Calling me weak? I’ll have you know I served in this country’s great army.”

They laughed together and stared at each other for a moment, the silence heavy but comfortable. BJ glanced down from Hawkeye’s eyes, landing on something just below.

“Don’t move,” BJ commanded, moving his hand to Hawkeye’s cheek. Hawkeye didn’t even know if his organs were moving, completely paralyzed as he tracked BJ’s hand as it pulled back a piece of fuzz and held it to the light.

“Is this dust?” he asked incredulously.

Hawkeye shifted his shoulders. “And what if it is? I’ve been catching up on missed sleep, and didn’t have Sleeping Beauty’s resources to remain clean.”

“Does that make me the prince?”

“I don’t think he woke her with a slap to the face and a rock, kind of pulls the romance out of the story. What’s the rock for anyways?”

“Oh, this?” BJ lifted the rock up, holding it between their chests. “I wanted to ruin our goodbye.”

They were still standing on the porch, Hawkeye frozen in place. For now, in the doorway, he was in a liminal space. It was possible something inside him really had cracked with that record and BJ was still in San Francisco. Inviting BJ in would reveal the truth, and Hawkeye couldn’t handle that just yet.

Before Hawkeye could respond, his dad called out from inside the house. “Are you ever going to let him in?”

BJ chuckled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

|||

The kitchen was dim, lit by the leftover light of the setting sun. His dad had already gone upstairs after dinner, and Hawkeye and BJ were standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the sink washing the meager dishes. When BJ had offered to help cook dinner, then immediately offered to help with the dishes, Hawkeye’s dad had given him a look, then announced his departure. Hawkeye didn’t know what to do with his first alone time with BJ all day.

Hawkeye remembered the story of the monkey's paw that had occupied his thoughts earlier. Right now, Hawkeye could almost imagine he felt BJ’s heartbeat through their brush of skin. He didn’t want this to be for nothing.

“Why are you here, Beej?” Hawkeye asked, wiping his hands on a rag. 

BJ paused in scrubbing the last dish, turning his head towards Hawkeye. “To see you.”

“Why aren’t you in San Francisco with your happy ending?” Hawkeye clarified, stepping away from the sink and leaning against the counter. He had abandoned his robe earlier, and now stood in his pajama set.

BJ sighed, turning fully towards Hawkeye, elbows rested on the counter behind him. “Peggy and I left each other,” he said simply. “Divorce hasn’t gone completely through yet, but it will.”

Hawkeye didn’t know how to respond. So many times, he had imagined himself in Peg’s place, getting to spend his life with BJ. Now that wasn’t plausible, them going their separate ways. He felt sympathy for her, this woman losing out on BJ.

“How’s she taking it?”

“Taking it? What—”BJ cut himself off, wrinkling his forehead. “Did you not know?”

“Know what?”

BJ laughed loudly, and Hawkeye rushed forward to shush him, not wanting to disturb his dad. Their sudden closeness sedated BJ, and he looked down into Hawkeye’s eyes.

“Peggy and I took up with each other when we were very young, before she realized that I wasn’t her type,” BJ explained.

“Not her type? How are you not her type? Tall, funny, kind. A doctor! There’s more that I’d list, but I can’t say it in polite company.”

“Who is the polite company?” BJ asked, amused.

“Me, of course.” Hawkeye swatted BJ in the chest. “Now answer my question.”

“Don’t worry, Hawk. I didn’t take it personally. I’d say it was more that men in general aren’t her type.”

“Oh,” Hawkeye said, settling on the balls of his feet. He was only inches from BJ, not having moved back to the counter.

“Oh indeed. Did you really not know?”

“We were only together for a few years,” Hawkeye defended. “And that’s a pretty heavy topic.”

“It felt like longer,” BJ admitted, shifting his feet more towards Hawkeye.

“I know.” After a beat, he went, “I thought you loved her?”

“I do,” BJ said, eyes moving past Hawkeye and into the darkness behind him. He leaned on his elbows more, looking pensive. “I stayed with her to protect her, help her live the life she wanted. Before she was my wife, she was my best friend. I thought I had what I wanted. I thought I was content with living with just a friend.”

Just a friend. It was always just a friend, never more, Hawkeye thought.

“What changed your mind?” The sun was almost completely gone now, with just enough light to let him see BJ’s eyes, once again looking back at him.

“Meeting you.”

The silence that descended after his confession was thick, leaving Hawkeye drowning on dry land.

“I got home, met Peggy’s friend, got to kiss my daughter. I had everything I had been wishing for for the past two years, but every time I laughed, I was looking over my shoulder to find you.”

Hawkeye couldn’t stand the eye contact any longer and shifted his gaze, landing on the rock sitting on the counter.

“You know I saw you in the grocery store earlier," BJ said to catch his attention.

“So that was you.” Hawkeye lightly shoved BJ back into the counter, and BJ caught his wrist before he could take it back.

“I was there to buy a sandwich before finding you, but the universe had other plans. I followed you home initially, but couldn’t work up the courage to knock. I’ve been sitting on the beach waiting.”

“Followed me home? My dad told me to stay away from men like that.”

“Your dad seems to like me just fine.” BJ’s grip shifted from Hawkeye's wrist to his hand, just holding it pressed against his chest. Even in the leftover heat of the kitchen from cooking, BJ burned like the sun.

He knew that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. BJ was the hero who got to fly off in the sky, while Hawkeye remained alone. He had no reference for this story, no quip to make. But he was tired of “supposed to” and the weight it carried.

Softly, slowly, Hawkeye stepped forward until they were chest to chest. His mind barely registered what he was doing until his lips were on BJ’s. The floor underneath his feet was cold, and they were cocooned in complete darkness.

BJ pulled back first. “Dance with me?”  
  


Hawkeye nodded. “Okay.”

“Nothing about buying you dinner?”

“I’m watching my weight.”

This time, when BJ laughed, their faces were so close together Hawkeye felt every vibration. He shivered despite the warmth. BJ noticed, and led their hands into proper waltz position, with BJ leading. They turned slowly around the kitchen, eyes never straying off of the other.

BJ started to hum, so quiet as to be nearly inaudible. The tune was light, hopeful, and Hawkeye recognized it immediately; he had shattered his copy of the song only this morning.

Hawkeye laughed—cackled, really. He couldn’t help it, no matter how strange it must seem to his father who was still upstairs.

“What is it?” BJ asked, with a fond look on his face. That’s what that look was, fond. Hawkeye had seen it many times before, but had never been able to look long enough to place it.

“Keep going. I’ll tell you later.”

They had a later. There was no timer hanging above their relationship, waiting for the call of peace. Hawkeye rested his head on BJ’s shoulder, his nose pressed against the taller man’s neck. No matter the time that had passed, they always had more. BJ went back to his singing, and Hawkeye found himself humming along.

_So kiss me once, then kiss me twice_

_Then kiss me once again_

_It’s been a long, long time_

**Author's Note:**

> tell me how it was! i spit this out in 24 hours. comments, kudos, keys to your soul. anything! i appreciate it all. i'm blacksailsnby on tumblr


End file.
